1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wood chippers and, more particularly, to a side feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to provide a wood chipper for chipping wood such as brush, branches, and the like to produce wood chips. An example of such a wood chipper is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,539 to Morey. In this patent, the wood chipper includes an infeed hopper, primary feed wheel assembly, and a cutting assembly having a rotatable disc or drum with at least one knife or blade for chipping the wood entering the wood chipper and reducing it to wood chips. Typically, the primary feed wheel assembly includes a stationary lower primary feed wheel connected to a lower housing and a movable upper primary feed wheel connected to an upper housing movable relative to the lower housing for allowing wood to enter the cutting assembly. The primary feed wheel assembly may include a spring interconnecting the upper housing and the lower housing to urge the upper primary feed wheel toward the lower primary feed wheel to apply a spring force against the wood entering between the primary feed wheels to feed the wood to the cutting assembly.
Although this primary feed wheel assembly has worked well, it is known that the wood material fed to the primary feed wheel assembly tends to slide to a side of the infeed hopper. This may result in plugging of the infeed to the primary feed wheel assembly. In addition, long lengths of wood material that have slid to the side are typically taken out of the infeed hopper by an operator and re-fed into the primary feed wheel assembly, which is time consuming and undesired.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a side feed wheel assembly to align feeding of wood material to the primary feed wheel assembly. It is also desirable to provide a side feed wheel assembly to reduce operator physical involvement in feeding the wood material to the primary feed wheel assembly. It is further desirable to provide a side feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper, which reduces plugging of the infeed to the primary feed wheel assembly by wood material when fed in by an operator under normal or extreme operating conditions. Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide a side feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper to that meets these desires.
Accordingly, the present invention is a side feed wheel assembly for a wood chipper including at least one side feed wheel adapted to be disposed adjacent at least one primary feed wheel of the wood chipper. The side feed wheel assembly also includes a mechanism for moving the side feed wheel transversely relative to the at least one primary feed wheel to feed wood material to the at least one primary feed wheel of the wood chipper.
One advantage of the present invention is that a side feed wheel assembly is provided for a wood chipper. Another advantage of the present invention is that the side feed wheel assembly aligns feeding of the wood material to the primary feed wheels. Yet another advantage of the present invention is that the side feed wheel assembly has a side feed wheel positioned on a side of an infeed hopper and moveable relative to at least one primary feed wheel. Still another advantage of the present invention is that the side feed wheel assembly provides for crushing of the wood material fed to the primary feed wheels. A further advantage of the present invention is that the side feed wheel assembly assists in pulling in wood material fed to the primary feed wheels. Yet a further advantage of the present invention is that the side feed wheel assembly breaks down limb type wood material fed to the primary feed wheels. Still a further advantage of the present invention is that the side feed wheel assembly reduces operator physical involvement feeding wood material to the primary feed wheels of the wood chipper. Another advantage of the present invention is that the side feed wheel assembly reduces plugging of the infeed to the primary feed wheels by feeding wood material by an operator to the primary feed wheels.